Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla Face Off in “Epic Rap Battles of History”

in Comedy, History, Science | March 19th, 2013

We’ve writ­ten a fair amount on the var­i­ous facets of Thomas Edison’s career, and some­what less on his less-famous for­mer employ­ee-become-rival Niko­la Tes­la (who seems to polar­ize peo­ple in ways Edi­son doesn’t). Both inven­tors pro­voke all kinds of seri­ous spec­u­la­tion, com­men­tary, and debate. But even peo­ple hav­ing fun with these larg­er-than-life char­ac­ters feel the need to pick sides. For exam­ple, there’s web­com­ic The Oatmeal’s “Why Niko­la Tes­la was the great­est geek who ever lived,” which obvi­ous­ly comes down hard in favor of Tes­la. Then there’s Tet­suya Kuro­sawa Bio­graph­i­cal com­ic Thomas Edi­son: Genius of the Elec­tric Age, which gives the edge to Edi­son.

Now, in anoth­er show­down between the pio­neer­ing genius­es of the elec­tric age, we have Epic Rap Bat­tles of His­to­ry, Sea­son 2, with Edi­son and Tes­la spit­ting rhymes to prove who should wear the top inventor’s crown. Pre­vi­ous Epic Rap Bat­tles of His­to­ry episodes pit Gand­hi against Mar­tin Luther King, Oba­ma vs. Rom­ney, and Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates. They’re all pret­ty great, but this one goes out to the sci­ence his­to­ry nerds (who have a sense of humor). The lyrics hit the high points of Edi­son and Tesla’s careers—Edison’s intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty theft, end­less string of patents, use of direct cur­rent, and “stack­ing rich­es”; Tesla’s almost reli­gious belief in the pow­er of elec­tric­i­ty, dis­in­ter­est in busi­ness, griev­ances with Edison—and there are plen­ty of per­son­al insults thrown into the mix.

Whether you’re a par­ti­san of Edi­son or Tes­la, or couldn’t care less either way, no doubt you’ll get a kick out of this. And for an added bonus, check out the “mak­ing of” video below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Magi­cian Mar­co Tem­pest Daz­zles a TED Audi­ence with “The Elec­tric Rise and Fall of Niko­la Tes­la”

A Brief, Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Thomas Edi­son (and Niko­la Tes­la)

Thomas Edi­son Recites “Mary Had a Lit­tle Lamb” in Ear­ly Voice Record­ing

Hayek vs. Keynes Rap

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

 

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I Say I Say I Say: A Delightful Home Movie by Peter Sellers (1964)

in Comedy, Film | March 5th, 2013

In late 1964, when he was at the height of his suc­cess, Peter Sell­ers filmed a series of vaude­vil­lian sketch­es with a group of wealthy and social­ly elite friends. He edit­ed the scenes togeth­er into a movie and called it I Say I Say I Say.

The ten-minute film was made dur­ing a week­end at the home of Joce­lyn and Jane Stevens. Joce­lyn Stevens was the pub­lish­er of Queen mag­a­zine and had recent­ly gained noto­ri­ety by financ­ing the con­tro­ver­sial pirate radio ship Caroline–hence the ref­er­ence to “the Duke and Duchess of Car­o­line.” A draw­ing of the pirate ship appears at the begin­ning of the film on top of the Duke and Duchess’s coat of arms, with its sym­bols for mon­ey and guns and the Latin mot­to “Errare Humanum Est” (“To Err is Human”).

Sell­ers is joined in the film by his preg­nant wife Britt Ekland, the Stevens­es, Princess Mar­garet and her hus­band Antho­ny Arm­strong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snow­don. Sell­ers jok­ing­ly called the enter­prise “Snow­do­deo­do Pro­duc­tions.” In one scene, Lord Snow­don appears as a rather effem­i­nate gang­ster. But the most famous episode fea­tures Sell­ers as “The Great Berko,” recent­ly returned from his “dra­mat­ic suc­cess at the Work­men’s Insti­tute, Penge,” who presents an uncan­ny imper­son­ation of Her Roy­al High­ness, Princess Mar­garet.  Sell­ers dis­ap­pears behind a screen and out comes–of course–the real Princess Mar­garet, sis­ter of Queen Eliz­a­beth II.

I Say I Say I Say was locked away in the Sell­ers fam­i­ly archives until about 1995, when the BBC pro­duced The Peter Sell­ers Sto­ry. The film was nev­er intend­ed for pub­lic exhi­bi­tion. “It was total­ly impro­vised,” Lord Snow­don told The Tele­graph in 2004. “Peter had a cam­era that he want­ed to try out. It was all very hap­haz­ard. We made the whole thing in I should think two hours.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

Peter Sell­ers Per­forms The Bea­t­les in Shake­speare­an Mode

Peter Sell­ers Gives a Quick Demon­stra­tion of British Accents

Peter Sell­ers Reads The Bea­t­les’ ‘She Loves You’ in Four Voic­es

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Short Documentary, How Do You Solve a Problem Like Lolita?, Psychoanalyzes Vladimir Nabokov

in Books, Comedy, Literature | February 27th, 2013

Here’s a flawed but fas­ci­nat­ing lit­tle film about the life of Vladimir Nabokov, exam­ined through the prism of his most famous book.

How Do You Solve a Prob­lem Like Loli­ta? first aired on British tele­vi­sion in 2009. The host is Stephen Smith, a cul­ture cor­re­spon­dent for BBC News­night. We don’t know the rest of Smith’s resume, but in watch­ing the doc­u­men­tary we get the feel­ing he may have picked up a lit­tle of his jour­nal­is­tic sen­si­bil­i­ty from the British tabloids.

The prob­lem referred to in the title is the sense–at least among Smith’s friends–that there is some­thing “per­vy” about Nabokov’s 1955 nov­el, Loli­ta, and that this rais­es cer­tain ques­tions about the author’s own sex­u­al pen­chants. “Was it a moral­i­ty play,” Smith asks at the out­set, “or the fan­ta­sy of a dirty old man?”

It’s a con­temptible point of depar­ture. But How Do You Solve a Prob­lem Like Loli­ta? man­ages to be worth­while in spite of itself. It’s filled with inter­est­ing old footage of Nabokov talk­ing about him­self and his work, as well as con­tem­po­rary footage of the writer’s old haunts in Rus­sia, Amer­i­ca and Switzer­land. The film is a kind of trav­el­ogue. Watch­ing it is like tak­ing a one-hour tour through a fas­ci­nat­ing land­scape with an ami­able but slight­ly annoy­ing guide.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Vladimir Nabokov Mar­vels Over Dif­fer­ent “Loli­ta” Book Cov­ers

Vladimir Nabokov (Chan­nelled by Christo­pher Plum­mer) Teach­es Kaf­ka at Cor­nell

Nabokov Reads Loli­ta, Names the Great Books of the 20th Cen­tu­ry

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The BBC’s Horrible Histories Videos Will Crack You Up and Teach You About WWI (and More)

in Comedy, History, K-12 | February 26th, 2013

My 12-year-old, home-schooled son recent­ly expressed an inter­est in study­ing World War I. This was encour­ag­ing, but also nerve-wrack­ing, giv­en the dis­dain that led me to spend most of World His­to­ry pass­ing notes and doo­dling (not in the Lyn­da Bar­ry col­lege course / this will help you absorb the infor­ma­tion bet­ter way). I retained noth­ing of what I’d been for­mal­ly taught. My most sol­id knowl­edge of the peri­od was gleaned from the sec­ond sea­son of Down­ton Abbey and an Audrey Tautou movie that was rat­ed R for sex and vio­lence. (There’s also a fam­i­ly pho­to­graph of us pos­ing on the Sara­je­vo street cor­ner where Franz Fer­di­nand was assas­si­nat­ed, but the sig­nif­i­cance of the spot had to be explained to me first.)

Some online scrab­bling led me to the BBC’s Hor­ri­ble His­to­ries’ brief overview of the “caus­es of World War I” (above). Wow. If only this series—and, ahem, the Internet—had exist­ed when I was the boy’s age! I think it’s safe to say my atten­tion would have been cap­tured. It’s sil­ly, yes, but that’s the whole point. The play­ers’ over-the-top comedic style ensures that even the dri­est of his­tor­i­cal facts will stick, as any­one who’s watched Michael Cera bring Alexan­der Hamil­ton to life in Drunk His­to­ry can attest. It’s the per­fect gate­way for fur­ther study.

Hor­ri­ble His­to­ries’ take on World War I proved  such a hit, the boy imme­di­ate­ly delved into oth­er peri­ods, often when he was sup­posed to be doing oth­er things, like play­ing Minecraft or watch­ing YouTube (tech­ni­cal­ly, I guess this sort of counts). Still it’s grat­i­fy­ing to hear him stud­ding his con­ver­sa­tion with casu­al ref­er­ences to the Bor­gias, the Tudors, and Mar­tin Luther. It makes me want to learn more, or at least bring myself up-to-speed on the videos. In the words of School­house Rock, knowl­edge is pow­er.

A WWI cen­ten­ni­al’s loom­ing, folks. Don’t get caught with your draw­ers down.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Drunk His­to­ry: An Intox­i­cat­ed Look at the Famous Alexan­der Hamil­ton – Aaron Burr Duel

The Dead Authors Pod­cast: H.G. Wells Com­i­cal­ly Revives Lit­er­ary Greats with His Time Machine

School­house Rock at 40: Revis­it a Col­lec­tion of Nos­tal­gia-Induc­ing Edu­ca­tion­al Videos

200 Free Kids Edu­ca­tion­al Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Web­sites & More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day  grad­u­at­ed from North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty with a degree in the­ater and has been mak­ing up for it ever since. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Richard Dawkins Dies (Not Really) and Meets His Maker in a New NSFW Animation

in Comedy, Religion | February 22nd, 2013

When Christo­pher Hitchens died, it did­n’t take long for humorists to imag­ine the com­ic sce­nario: what hap­pens when the surly athe­ist comes face to face with God? It’s amus­ing to con­sid­er. And when it comes to Richard Dawkins, the humorists aren’t wait­ing for the biol­o­gist’s demise to play things out. In Kevin Breen’s South Park-style trib­ute, Dawkins arrives at the Gates of Heav­en, only to dis­cov­er that God exists after all. When the “Man in the Sky Who Saves Amer­i­ca, Bless­es the Queen” asks Dawkins for his reac­tion, the author of The God Delu­sion gives him an ear­ful. The stri­dent lan­guage is pure Dawkins. Actu­al­ly, his lines are sound bites tak­en from recent Dawkins speech­es. In 2006, a stu­dent famous­ly asked Dawkins “What If You’re Wrong [About the Exis­tence of God], and the Oxford biol­o­gist replied with lines that sound famil­iar.

In this clip, crit­ics will find anoth­er rea­son not to like Dawkins; fans will find anoth­er rea­son to adore him. But, what did Richard Dawkins think? “Fun!,” he wrote, as he post­ed it to his Face­book page.

Note: This video con­tains some strong lan­guage. It’s basi­cal­ly NSFW.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Alan Watts and His Zen Wis­dom Ani­mat­ed by Cre­ators of South Park

The Unbe­liev­ers, A New Film Star­ring Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Wern­er Her­zog, Woody Allen, & Cor­mac McCarthy

Christo­pher Hitchens: No Deathbed Con­ver­sion for Me, Thanks, But it was Good of You to Ask

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John Cleese’s Eulogy for Graham Chapman: ‘Good Riddance, the Free-Loading Bastard, I Hope He Fries’

in Comedy, Life | February 18th, 2013

The British come­di­an Gra­ham Chap­man delight­ed in offend­ing peo­ple. As a writer and actor with the leg­endary Mon­ty Python troupe, he pushed against the bound­aries of pro­pri­ety and good taste. When his writ­ing part­ner John Cleese pro­posed doing a sketch on a dis­grun­tled man return­ing a defec­tive toast­er to a shop, Chap­man thought: Bro­ken toast­er? Why not a dead par­rot? And in one par­tic­u­lar­ly out­ra­geous sketch writ­ten by Chap­man and Cleese in 1970,  Chap­man plays an under­tak­er and Cleese plays a cus­tomer who has just rung a bell at the front desk:

“What can I do for you, squire?” says Chap­man.

“Um, well, I won­der if you can help me,” says Cleese. “You see, my moth­er has just died.”

“Ah, well, we can ‘elp you. We deal with stiffs,” says Chap­man. “There are three things we can do with your moth­er. We can burn her, bury her, or dump her.”

“Dump her?”

“Dump her in the Thames.”

“What?”

“Oh, did you like her?”

“Yes!”

“Oh well, we won’t dump her, then,” says Chap­man. “Well, what do you think? We can bury her or burn her.”

“Which would you rec­om­mend?”

“Well, they’re both nasty.”

From there, Chap­man goes on to explain in the most graph­ic detail the unpleas­ant aspects of either choice before offer­ing anoth­er option: can­ni­bal­ism. At that point (in keep­ing with the script) out­raged mem­bers of the stu­dio audi­ence rush onto the stage and put a stop to the sketch.

Chap­man and Cleese had been close friends since their stu­dent days at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty, and when Chap­man died of can­cer at the age of 48 on Octo­ber 4, 1989, Cleese was at his bed­side. Out of respect for Chap­man’s fam­i­ly, the mem­bers of Mon­ty Python decid­ed to stay away from his pri­vate funer­al and avoid a media cir­cus. Instead, they gath­ered for a memo­r­i­al ser­vice on Octo­ber 6, 1989 in the Great Hall at St. Bartholomew’s Hos­pi­tal in Lon­don. When Cleese deliv­ered his eulo­gy for Chap­man, he recalled his friend’s irrev­er­ence: “Any­thing for him, but mind­less good taste.” So Cleese did his best to make his old friend proud. His off-col­or but heart­felt eulo­gy that evening has become a part of Mon­ty Python lore, and you can watch it above. To see a longer clip, with mov­ing words from Michael Palin and a sing-along of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” led by Eric Idle, watch below:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mon­ty Python’s Best Phi­los­o­phy Sketch­es

Mon­ty Python’s Life of Bri­an: Reli­gious Satire, Polit­i­cal Satire, or Blas­phe­my?

John Cleese, Mon­ty Python Icon, on How to Be Cre­ative

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Tom Waits Shows Us How Not to Get a Date on Valentine’s Day

in Comedy, Film | February 14th, 2013

It’s Valen­tine’s Day and love is in the air. Or at least some­thing is in the air in this delet­ed scene from the 1999 cult film Mys­tery Men. We’re not sure exact­ly what. In the film, Tom Waits plays the mad sci­en­tist Dr. Heller, inven­tor of “Fog-in-a-Tube” and “Truth­paste,” among oth­er things. For anoth­er strange scene of cupid’s arrow gone bad­ly astray, see our post from last year, David Lynch Falls in Love: A Clas­sic Scene From Twin Peaks.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed con­tent:

Tom Waits’ Clas­sic Appear­ance on Aus­tralian TV, 1979

Tom Waits Makes Com­ic Appear­ance on Fer­n­wood Tonight, 1977

Tom Waits and Kei­th Richards Sing Sea Song “Shenan­doah” for New Pirate-Themed CD: Lis­ten Online

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Watch Lambeth Walk—Nazi Style: The Early Propaganda Mash Up That Enraged Joseph Goebbels

in Comedy, Film, History, Politics, Video - Arts & Culture | February 14th, 2013

In a ter­rif­ic his­tor­i­cal prank that sent Nazi Pro­pa­gan­da Min­is­ter Joseph Goebbels storm­ing out of the screen­ing room, British min­is­ter Charles A. Rid­ley edit­ed togeth­er scenes from the film Tri­umph of the Will with the music from the musi­cal Me and My Girl to cre­ate a spoof that infu­ri­at­ed lead­ers of the Third Reich.

Lam­beth Walk—Nazi Style was released in 1941 to news­reel com­pa­nies. It was billed as “Schich­le­gru­ber Doing the Lam­beth Walk, Assist­ed by the Gestapo Hep Cats,” and lays the catchy tune against images of Hitler and Nazi sol­diers from Leni Riefenstahl’s sem­i­nal pro­pa­gan­da film.

The sto­ry goes that the par­o­dy enraged Goebbels to such an extent that he ran out of the screen­ing room, kick­ing at chairs and scream­ing obscen­i­ties.

“The Lam­beth Walk” tune was writ­ten for the 1937 musi­cal, about a Cock­ney boy who inher­its a for­tune and must leave behind his work­ing-class ways to become a gen­tle­man. Nazi par­ty offi­cials called the tune “Jew­ish mis­chief and ani­mal­is­tic hop­ping,” mak­ing it even fun­nier as the back­ground music for Nazi sol­diers parad­ing.

The name “Schich­le­gru­ber,” by the way, was also a dig at Hitler. It was the name of his mater­nal grand­moth­er, whose son Alois (Hitler’s father) was an ille­git­i­mate child. Oops!

via Slate

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Don­ald Duck’s Bad Nazi Dream and Four Oth­er Dis­ney Pro­pa­gan­da Car­toons from World War II

“The Duck­ta­tors”: Loony Tunes Turns Ani­ma­tion into Wartime Pro­pa­gan­da (1942)

Hitler Reacts to Take­down of Hitler Par­o­dies

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at .

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